My Movies

Mister Roberts

In the waning days of World War II, Lt. Doug Roberts, the Executive Office of the supply ship Reluctant, itches to see combat. One of the truly great casts, including Henry Fonda as Mister Roberts, James Cagney as the ship's captain, Jack Lemmon as Ensign Pulver, and William Powell as the ship's doctor.

I looked down from our bridge and saw our captain's palm tree! Our trophy for superior achievement! The Admiral John J. Finchley award for delivering more toothpaste and toilet paper than any other Navy cargo ship in the safe area of the Pacific.

North By Northwest

Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, the classic everyman who in a case of mistaken identity is wrongly accused of murder and pursued by spies who want him dead.

Now you listen to me. I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself slightly killed.

An iconic Alfred Hitchcock film with all the classic Hitchcock devices—a convoluted, ridiculous plot; cool, seductive blonde; dangerous villians; and Cary Grant simply being Cary Grant. He was once quoted as saying, Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant!

The Third Man

The most gripping scene in the film takes place between writer Holly Martins and his old friend Harry Lime in a giant ferris wheel high above war-torn Vienna. It's obvious from their conversation that Harry has changed in a very fundamental way.

You know what the fellow said: In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love—they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Filmed on location several years after the end of World War II, the rubble-strewn city is as much a character as any of the actors as we see scenes of utter destruction and ordinary citizens going about their daily routines sometimes within the same shot. The skewed camera angles lend an extra dimension of distortion to this fractured tale of greed.

The Manchurian Candidate

This oddball thriller about a brainwashed war hero programmed to assassinate the president almost didn't get made. Only after President Kennedy contacted the studio at pal Frank Sinatra's request to express his approval and say that he enjoyed the novel, did the studio give the project the green light.

Do you realize, Comrade, the implications of the weapon that has been placed at your disposal?...A normally-conditioned American, who has been trained to kill and then to have no memory of having killed...His brain has not only been washed, as they say, it's been dry-cleaned.

Guys And Dolls

How could you not love a musical with singing gangsters named Nathan Detroit, Nicely-Nicely, Harry the Horse, and Big Jule? Oh yeah, Marlon Brando sings, too!

When you see a sport
And his cash has run short,
You can bet that he's
Banking it with some doll.

When a guy wears tails
With the front gleaming white,
Who the heck do you think
He's tickling pink on Saturday night?

When a lazy slob
Takes a good steady job,
And he smells from
Vitalis and Barbasol,
Call it dumb, call it clever,
Ah, but you can give odds forever,
That the guy's only doing it for some doll.